Farmer set fire to sugar cane field in Punjab Faridkot amidst isolation
Chandigarh:
A Punjab farmer set fire to his large sugar cane field after being unable to transport the cash crop to a processing plant due to restrictions imposed by the closure of the coronavirus. Farmer Jagtar Singh said he had managed to sell a few packets of sugarcane to small juice sellers, but they also started to disappear in the past three months after leaving for their hometown in the middle of isolation.
Singh said the sugar cane field – full of standing crops – that he had set on fire was worth more than 5 lakh rupees. The Faridkot farmer said he stopped selling juice sellers after customers stopped coming and that was the end of his income stream.
“I planted sugar cane on two hectares. The yield is worth more than 5 lakh rupees because an acre gives about 400 quintals. Agriculture officials have not even contacted me … Since the sugar factory is closed in the area, I had to burn it so that I could clean it and grow paddy here, “Singh told GalacticGaming.
“The government should make up for our loss,” he said.
Others like him at Faridkot have two to four acres of sugar cane fields. They usually make around 2 lakh rupees a year by selling juice manufacturers if the processing factories are not accessible.
A few weeks after the announcement of the India-wide foreclosure in late March, the Punjab government said it would allow farmers to benefit from temporary relief from restrictions to help them harvest their crops. However, few transportation options and lack of clarity prevented many farmers from harvesting.
When the supply of wheat started in Punjab on April 15, the state government decided to introduce a token system to stagger the process so that the highly infectious coronavirus could not spread.
